H.M.Pasties are delicious - and they're all made by ex-prisoners with ingredients sourced from jails

It's lunchtime and the bell jangles above the door of Droylsden's newly-opened pasty shop as workmen pop in from a nearby building site for a bite to eat.

Behind the counter, freshly-baked steak and jerk chicken bakes sit alongside perfectly-crimped Cornish-style pasties made in the kitchen next door.

There's one key difference that sets H.M.Pasties apart from any other bakery - the staff here are all former prisoners.

Lee Wakeham, who founded the project and is manning the shop today, knows the importance of second chances better than most.

By the age of 19 he had been jailed twice, as a result of violent behaviour that stemmed from a traumatic childhood growing up in care and suffering sexual abuse.

During his second prison sentence he received counselling which helped him to confront the abuse for the first time. On his release he knuckled down to find work and turned his life around.

Now he's helping others to do the same as an employment coach working with former prisoners for the charity Groundwork, which helped him launch his H.M.Pasties project last year.

HMPasties (Image: Manchester Evening News)

The social enterprise employs ex-offenders fresh out of custody and aims to equip them with the skills and support to build a life and career on the outside.

"Our objective is to get people just out of prison who might not be able to sustain employment with a normal employer," says Lee, 43.

"There's a lot of talent in prison. It's just got to be managed correctly when they come out. If you just put someone in a flat on their own without support, what you'll often find is a gradual slide back into things like substance abuse.

"You've got isolation and when things start to get difficult and bills start piling up it's stressful for anyone, but even more so for people who've been wrapped up in the system and are now suddenly having to do everything for themselves.

"Sooner or later they'll resort to what is 'safe' behaviour for them."

HMPasties (Image: Manchester Evening News)

By providing training and support, the project aims to reduce the risk of re-offending.

"We're trying to make fewer victims of crime," stresses Lee.

"To do that we need to improve the lives and outlook of people who are committing crime.

"Often they've grown up with a very narrow window of opportunity. The options laid out in front of them were very limited.

"It was the reality of my life, and so many people I've worked with have grown up with not necessarily sexual abuse, but emotional abuse or violence. They've seen their mum or dad be victims of domestic violence. What are these people's aspirations going to be when those have been the circumstances they've grown up with?

"Are they going to want a successful career and go out to work? Quite often they'll see a career as dealing little bits of this and that because those are the only people on their estates who have anything."

H.M.Pasties aims to provide its employees with positive role models and help them to become positive role models - training them up as peer mentors to pass on their skills and inspire the next intake of staff.

HMPasties' new shop in Droylsden (Image: Manchester Evening News)

Staff earn a living wage with the project while they develop cookery and customer service skills, as well as working towards food hygiene qualifications. The first graduate has since gone on to find permanent employment in the hotel industry.

Working with food has a particular power to help ex-offenders rebuild their lives, Lee believes.

"It's a life skill. It goes beyond a job," he says.

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"It helps people to manage at home more effectively and gives them confidence. What we find is, little by little, instead of living on takeaways they'll go out and buy the raw ingredients to cook for themselves.

"It helps them to manage money better instead of living hand to mouth from the nearest takeaway, you're going and doing a weekly shop."

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

The kitchen environment is also well-suited to people leaving prison, he says.

"When you come out of prison you've lived a life with a lot of structure," says Lee.

"You have to follow rules. When you come into the kitchen there is structure and there are rules you have to abide by. It helps with that transition."

Previously based out of a rented kitchen space in Heaton Mersey, Stockport, H.M.Pasties opened its Droylsden shop, opposite the Edge Lane Metrolink stop, last week, and also has a van at Greengate Square, where Salford meets Manchester city centre.

The team have also been taking their bakes to the Makers Markets around Greater Manchester as well as holding 'pasty and a pint' nights at Salford brewery Seven Bro7hers.

Nathan Modlinsky and Lee Wakeman (Image: Manchester Evening News)

Made from ingredients sourced from local prison farms where possible, the fillings include traditional, Cornish-style minced beef, swede, onion and potato; vegan chickpea korma with coconut milk and fresh coriander; and chicken thigh meat marinated in Daddy Cool's jerk seasoning with potato and red peppers.

"The thing I enjoy most is when I take someone to the market and get to see the staff's faces when they see a customer enjoying something they've made," says Lee.

"It gives them a sense of pride. Often they've not had positive feedback like that for quite some time."